We did not get there until several hours later – after a spell in Dalston police station.
Jimmy Kensit had decided to call in for something at his flat in Pritchards Road, in Haggerston. Ronnie and I were sitting in Jimmy’s banger when a squad car roared up. We thought there must have been some big robbery – a murder perhaps – but in fact we were the lucky ones to be under investigation. A detective constable called Bartlett started asking Ronnie and me who we were, where we were going, etc, while two uniformed constables inspected Jimmy’s car.
Fortunately, just as Bartlett was preparing to take us to Dalston nick for further questioning, a friend of ours named Billy Gripp walked by. Billy, who trained for judo at the gym above The Double R, was a respected citizen of Bethnal Green and I admitted to him I was worried about a frame-up: would he mind searching Ronnie, Jimmy and myself, and the car, to satisfy the police and a gathering crowd that we didn’t have anything we should not have? Bartlett objected, but Billy went ahead anyway. Then we were taken to the police station. While Bartlett strutted around, warning us that we’d be inside soon, our homes were searched – without warrants – and later we were charged with…loitering with intent to commit a felony!
Poor Pat Connolly had to take a back seat for a while, as did all the people we were keen to warn to have anti-polio jabs.
The case actually went to court but, happily, did not last too long. Bartlett told the Marylebone magistrate under oath that Ronnie and I had been seen in Queens-bridge Road trying the door handles of parked cars, and that we fled after Kensit hooted his horn to warn us we were being watched.
Jimmy’s car horn was found to be out of action, and we proved we were somewhere else at the time of the alleged offences. But we were far from happy walking out of Marylebone Court that day. It was obvious we were marked men.
Bartlett – a pervert later convicted of molesting young girls – was merely a pawn in a game controlled by far more senior and influential officers.
A few days later I arrived at Vallance Road to find Mum comforting Frances, who was crying: some policeman had turned up and arrested Reggie for breaking and entering an East End house. Seething, I raced round to Bethnal Green nick and told them I knew it was a ‘get up’; that they were framing Reggie for something he didn’t do.
The police said they had a witness – a Jewish woman in her seventies called Lilia Hertzberg who claimed to have seen Reggie and another man running out of her husband’s Stepney home with jewellery and cash valued at £500.
The case was a laugh throughout the East End, for most people knew that Reggie would rather give an old couple £500 than steal it from them. But Reggie was still sent for trial at Inner London Sessions. We were not sure if there had actually been a robbery or if Mrs Hertzberg was being paid by the police to invent one. But we knew she had not seen Reggie so we offered her £500 to encourage her to tell the truth in court. Since she and her husband were due to leave to begin a new life in Australia shortly, they both jumped at the idea.
It was decided that on the day of the hearing someone would go to the old man’s house with the £500. As soon as Reggie was released, the husband would receive a phone call from the court and the money would be handed over.
That’s exactly what happened – except that the old man never got the £500. When the phone call came through and he asked for it, our friend said, ‘You’ve got to be joking. You’re lucky you’re not younger – I’d knock you up in the air for what you’ve tried to do.’
Since we had discovered he was a paid police informer, none of us had any qualms about not giving him the £500.
As for Reggie, he was awarded costs against the police – satisfying in a way, but hardly compensation for the seven weeks he had been held in custody.
Later, Reggie admitted to me that he’d panicked when the police arrived at Vallance Road. I was amazed because Reggie had never been intimidated by the law. But it was all to do with Frances. Reggie knew the robbery allegation was a joke and he felt they might go the whole hog and claim the woman had been assaulted. The thought of Frances thinking for a second that he had touched another woman sent him into a cold sweat; and when the police said it was only robbery he was relieved, and went quickly and quietly – even though he hadn’t been anywhere near the scene of the alleged crime.
The warnings were there for the future: the police had played two tough games against the Krays and lost badly each time. But there was bound to be another time. We had bought cars, clothes, jewellery, exotic holidays, and other luxuries that make life sweeter. But we had not bought any policemen.
When the police moved in and closed The Double R, the twins got the hump. Why did the Old Bill have it in for them? they wanted to know. One minute they were millionaires, demanding with menaces all over London, the next they – and I – were supposed to be pilfering from cars. Now a harmless club was shut down. It did not make sense.
Around this time Billy Hill gave the twins some advice, which he urged them to take and never forget. Over drinks at his sumptuous flat in Moscow Road, Bayswater, the notorious gangland figure of the fifties told Ronnie and Reggie that they were fortunate in having a brother who was straight, who had no criminal convictions and was not involved in villainy of any kind. It was vital to keep it that way, he said, because I would always be an ally; an important weapon they could use to set legal machinery in motion if things went badly with the law. ‘Never involve Charlie in anything crooked,’ he said.
And he begged them to remember that advice.
Billy’s remarks gave the twins an idea. Since I was trusted one hundred per cent by the Old Bill, could I not have a word with someone to find out just why they appeared to be marked men. I said I’d speak to someone in the know, which is how I came to be talking to two plain-clothes coppers in an out-of-the-way pub in Walworth, South London.
The men arrived with a load of papers. And what they contained blew my mind. To me, the twins were just two ordinary cockneys from the back streets of Bethnal Green: tough, certainly, but likeable and respectful unless their feathers were ruffled by idiots. But to Scotland Yard, it seemed, the twins were a highly important duo, worth watching closely. I was shown telexes to Scotland Yard from forces in other countries, giving details of where the twins had gone and who they had met. There was a lot of stuff on Tangier and Ronnie’s meetings with Billy Hill, who had a house there.
I told the two coppers that I couldn’t dispute that the twins had had a few rows. But they were not robbing people; they were just club owners who wanted to make a few bob. Why, I asked, was the Yard going to such lengths to find out what they were up to?
The coppers told me that, quite simply, the twins had become too powerful. They may have started out as two ambitious, but insignificant, East Enders of modest intelligence, but now they were powerful; too powerful. They had money, and friends in high places with a lot of influence. The mixture was too dangerous.
I said I couldn’t understand it. How could the twins be a danger? All they wanted to do was to run a few clubs, have no money worries and be able to count the rich and famous – particularly sporting and showbusiness celebrities – among their friends.
Top political figures, it seemed, believed the twins could get 1,000 men behind them from all over the country, with a few phone calls.
The twins knew a lot of people, I agreed. But if they could get 1,000 people, what would they want them for? What would they all do?
The coppers didn’t have an answer to that. They just said that the people who ran the country considered them too powerful and were thinking of ways to control them. But I could be sure of one thing, they told me, and the twins ought to be aware of it: they would not be allowed, under any circumstances, to become more powerful.
I paid the coppers the agreed £100